Lost Weekend

I didn't lose the whole weekend, just yesterday and today (which I know is Monday, but it's all running together for me.) It's about 11:30; I'm having a colonoscopy in two hours. At this point, I'm mostly bored, and HUNGRY. I thought I'd post now rather than think of the food I'm going to eat the second I come home later on.

It seems like a long time without writing for me, for no real reason. I thought a log about July 4, but couldn't decide where to go with it. It used to be a family holiday, a barbecue in our backyard, but the kids are all dispersed now, and my parents are gone. Maybe we'll restore it someday. It was a lot of work for me, but also a lot of fun. And truth be told, we did it as simply as we could. The vegan Hubs even cooked all the meat for everyone, but I don't know if we even have a grill anymore. Ah, I'll put it on the list for future consideration.

I couldn't eat solid food yesterday, so I pretty much slept as much as I could. I should have had a morning appointment; I did, for last week, but had to postpone it because the Father's Day barbecue at my sister-in-law's got postponed a week, so I couldn't have done the preparation.

Anyway, the worst of it is over, and I do like the feeling of going under the anesthesia. All I want to do now is eat. The good news is that this time, I actually did lose a couple of pounds. So altogether, I'm down a little over six pounds in about ten days. Not a rate I expect to continue, but if I can get two more by the end of the week, I'll be back to where I was before I started gaining the weight back. And maybe then the Wii Fit won't tell me that I'm obese. :(

So that's my story.




watching WILL AND GRACE :: ENTRY #2080
READING: ----- by -----

And Then It Got Exciting

Last night, I wrote:

R is currently waiting at the airport for a flight to visit friends over the holiday, a flight which I checked online so I know it's delayed. Sucks to be her.

Well. Ahem.

So, shortly after that, she learned that her flight to Atlanta was going to be so delayed that she would never catch the connecting flight from Atlanta to Charleston. The helpful ticket agent said she should fly to Atlanta (whenever the delayed flight finally tookk off), sleep in the Atlanta airport all night, and get the next flight to Charleston in the morning. She told him no, she wanted to rebook the whole thing to go today (which is what I had suggested to her.) He said, But then you'd have to spend the night in the airport here! (Newark.) Uh ... no, she lives here. So the arrangements were made, at which point she discovered that the trains were already on a holiday schedule (i.e., not running to her town), so K and went to the airport and got her, and took her home. And brought her back to the airport this morning. As of this moment, the first flight went well, and she's on her way to Charleston.

The annoying thing about all this is that the friend she's going to visit is a very peculiar friend, and she was also going there to see a guy, but they've since broken it off, so she's basically going because she didn't want to lose the money for the plane ticket. When she called the friend and explained the situation with the flight delays, she was annoyed, because she and her husband are working today, and they were counting on R to babysit, and to wait for the cable guy.

See?

Anyway, we were treated to fireworks in various towns as we made our way back from the airport last night, and R, who flew down to visit the same people last July 3, says it's very cool to fly over this country on the evening of July 3, because as you look out the plane window, you keep seeing fireworks below you. Neat.

In the meantime, I have the Twilight Zone marathon on -- wouldn't be July 4 weekend without it -- but I had to change the channel when "The Hitchhiker" episode came on, because it still scares me. My big sister told me -- as big sisters will do -- that the hitchhiker lived under my bed, or, if he got tired of that, in my closet. For years after that, I slept in the very center of my bed, still as a soldier all night, with a series of dolls on either side of me. I dearly loved my dolls, but I kind of hoped that when the hitchhiker reached up to grab me, he would get one of them first by mistake, thus providing me with valuable escape time. I also slept every night for years with my closet and room doors wide open, and the blinds up and curtains open, so that light from the street would illuminate all corners. *sigh* She also didn't take me to see the Beatles at Shea Stadium, but that's a story for another day. But she does go to doctors with me and otherwise is the best sister in the world, so I'm not complaining. I'm just saying.

The New York City oldies station (WCBS-FM) is playing its entire playlist in alphabetical order this week. Unusual, and interesting, and sometimes surprising. Sadly, they are now a 60s-70s-80s station as opposed to their previous 50s-60s-70s, but okay. This afternoon I went through my iTunes and put together a similar huge list, although not as huge as theirs, I suppose, and if you take away Bon Jovi, there's not a whole lot of 80s. (And mine has Buddy Holly.) Anyway, it's a big list; it's amusing to see the songs arranged that way, and to see which songs I have more than one version of and I'm keeping there. Sometimes, more than one artist had a hit with the same song. So there's a bunch of those. I think I can listen to this mix for weeks before I get to the end of it.

I too love July 4, as many of you have said. We used to have a barbecue here at my house, but since my parents are gone and my sister's kids are dispersed and/or at their in-laws' beck and call, it's faded away. We loved it, though; I may have posted some pictures in the past. Anyway, I'll close out today with one of my favorites, circa 1991:


(My kids are the two smallest, nephew JJ is the biggest, and the other two are the twins, Wonderful Niece and Good Guy. And in the middle, pre-cancer Shirl, and Jack, who hated to have his picture taken, but loved his grandchildren above all.)


WATCHING THE TWILIGHT ZONE :: ENTRY #1798
SUMMER BOOK #3: The Yiddish Policemen's Union by Michael Chabon

"Counting the Cars ... "

" ... on the New Jersey Turnpike; they've all come to look for America ... " (America, by Paul Simon)

Guess where we spent our holiday?

Really, it wasn't as bad as all day on the Turnpike and/or Garden State Parkway, just under two hours each way. Which is plenty. I just don't like going, although I'll admit this wasn't as bad as it could have been.

You see, I like the people I'm with, I like the restaurant we go to, I like the food. It's the whole experience I don't care for. Part of this, I think, is that the people in charge of the party -- the MIL and the FIL -- do not have the same sense of time that I have, because a) they just don't, and b) they are old. They are getting older faster, if you know what I mean. He doesn't hear well, which, okay, but she has a soft voice, and when she calls to him to do something it sounds kind of like tom and when he doesn't answer, she gets pissed off, and the next try is more like TOM! And he was always laid back, but now he moves so slowly that it's like he's moving backwards. To wit:

The reservation was for 3:30, which is exactly when we all got to the restaurant, all except my nephew, who had to work late and was meeting us there. He arrived at four. At which time, the ILs thought it was okay to order appetizers. We didn't even order our dinners until 4:30! Who's crazy here; is it me? You order your meal an hour after you arrive? The wait staff was totally going at our pace; they are very, very nice there and know the ILs well because they go there all the time. I felt like I was jumping out of my skin and wanted to scream "Let's move it, people!" which of course I did not. The SIL, mother of the delayed nephew, was trying to gently encourage her parents to order, but they wanted to wait for the kid. Who is a nice kid, btw, now that he's an adult and speaks to us. (He was always polite but simply never engaged in conversation from the age of ten or so.) He's a good looking boy, graduating from college in May, and is a good kid. Helped his grandfather to the men's room without being asked. (The FIL has a lot of trouble walking.)

And we get to do it all again in May, since we will be celebrating the FIL's 80th birthday. The Hubs and I will drive the FIL's sister and her husband down with us; our girls will go in their own car, as they did today.

Speaking of the Aunt and Uncle, whom I have mentioned before, the Hubs and I visited them yesterday pre-Easter (and to pick up the Easter Pie, a family and world-renowned delicacy made by the Aunt), and once again, let me say that these are two of my favorite people in the world. They have been married 56 years, and are funny as hell, like a comedy team, and they are loaded with the Black Humor, which I thought only came from my side of the family. I heart them totally.

So one of the reasons my girls like to go in a separate car is that their father has been known to freak out on the ride home. On one notable occasion, the traffic irked him so much he announced that he was going to drive the car into a wall and kill us all. So you can see that this troubles them a bit. He's a very good driver, but he has a habit of following the car in front of us too closely for my comfort, so it's not usually pleasant for me, either. And today I saw him consume a fair amount of wine, so I assumed I'd be driving home. But he drove, and damn if he isn't a better driver with wine in him than without. (He didn't drive back to his folks' house from the restaurant, I did, so he did wait some time after his last glass and getting behind the wheel.) As for me, anyone driving on the same day as having consumed alcohol is too much, but honestly, I had no stressful moments on the whole ride, and the traffic never bothered him, such as it was.

So now I'm just waiting for K to get back from dropping off R, and for John Adams to start on TV. And work tomorrow, oh boy.


WATCHING waiting for JOHN ADAMS :: ENTRY #1708

The End of an Era

Well, sort of. There's a Twilight Zone marathon on the SciFi channel today, as there as been a TZ marathon on some channel for years and years now on July 4, Labor Day, and a variety of other holidays. Earlier, I happened to catch a moment of that creepy episode -- that narrows it down -- where there are four greedy relatives waiting for a wealthy old man to die, and he makes them wear masks and then their faces turn into the masks. Anyway, this one stands out for me because one of the mask-wearing relatives was played by a character actor named Milton Selzer.




Ah, Milton. I wrote about him once before. I never met him but I knew who he was my whole life because he was always on TV in something or other, and he had been one of my father's fraternity brothers at the University of New Hampshire in the late 1930s. For the last few years, each time I see him in something -- usually a TZ marathon -- I check him on imdb to see if he's still among us. I checked today for the first time in a long time -- probably since last Labor Day -- and I see that he is now gone. Seems like another link to Jack gone.


Otherwise, it's very overcast here today, not an outside day at all, not that I would be outside. Mostly, we've been watching a lot of the Back to the Futures that are on some channel or other all day. R landed safely in South Carolina before 11.00 this morning. I was just about to take a nap a little while ago when my cousin called from Colorado, so it was very nice to catch up with her. We don't talk often, but have always been close.

I've been reading this 8 Things About Yourself meme here, there, and everywhere, and I don't know if I can come up with 8 things you people don't already know about me. I may toss in one a day here or there, if I can think of anything. Not that I'm not random to begin with, but I guess that would be pretty random.

My back is still bothering me, which seems like a long time now, but then today feels like Sunday, which would make it a week, but it's only Wednesday.

Oh, okay, Random Fact #1:

boxx said something about a lot of her family members having birthdays on or near holidays. Now, one's definition of a holiday plays a role here, however:

1. Both of my mother's parents were born on different nights of Chanukah.
2. My father's mother's birthday was March 15, which was the original Income Tax Day. My father's father's birthday was July 4.
3. My father's oldest sister's birthday was January 20, Inauguration Day. Her husband's birthday was April 15, which is the current Income Tax Day.
   
4. My father's birthday was May 30, the original date of Memorial Day.
5. My mother's birthday was September 2, which was often Labor Day.
6. My cousin's birthday -- the one I was just speaking to -- is February 2, which is Ground Hog Day.
7. My sister was born on May 14, 1948, the day that Israel declared itself an independent nation and was recognized as such by the United States.
   
8. My grandfather's brother, Uncle Joe, had his birthday on October 12, which is Columbus Day. When my sister was born, Uncle Joe suggested to my parents that she be named "Palestine" in honor of the occasion of the day of her birth. She was not.
   
9. Uncle Joe and Aunt Sara were married on Christmas Day. My grandparents were married one week later, on New Year's Day.
10. My parents were married on Christmas Day.

I think that's it. No holiday for me. When I was a kid, I felt like the only one without a special birthday.

WATCHING OPRAH :: ENTRY #1515